


Come Softly to Me

by amyoatmeal



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Adultery, Alternate Universe - 1950s, Angst and Tragedy, Blood, Blow Jobs in a Car, Bottom Castiel (Supernatural), Car Sex, Castiel (Supernatural) Whump, Dark, Demon Dean Winchester, Demonic Possession, Exorcisms, Extremely Dubious Consent, First Time Blow Jobs, Homophobic Language, Horror, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, POV Castiel (Supernatural), Priest Castiel (Supernatural), Sexual Violence, Threats of Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 12:21:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18073301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyoatmeal/pseuds/amyoatmeal
Summary: The devil comes in threes: An allegory in three parts.





	1. Sacraments

**Author's Note:**

> The monster here is internalized homophobia lol. 
> 
> Also, I'd like to thank my beta AngelwithacapitalA for putting up with my bullshit. This is 97% done, I'm just hoping your feedback will spur me into tying it off. If this can get more than 19 kudos I will be a happy person.

The door to the confessional closed. With a rustling from the other side of the screen, the occupant sat and the weathered bench groaned under their weight as they shuffled to get comfortable. They cleared their throat. They took a deep breath. After a few more, they finally choked out, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” in a mumbled rush of breath. 

Belatedly, Castiel recognized the voice, but he wasn’t allowed to acknowledge it. He couldn’t see much beyond a shrouded profile through the screen, but he could see Dean Winchester nervously fidgeting with the sleeves of his suit jacket. 

“And how long has it been since your last confession?”

“Uh, y’know, I don’t actually know. Too long, I s’pose.” Dean gave a huff of a laugh and thumped his head against the wall of the confessional. “You tell me,” he joked uncomfortably. 

“That’s quite alright if you don’t remember.” He suppressed a smile at hearing the man’s voice, however stilted. Dean Winchester was a pleasant enough man to be around. When Dean didn’t say anything further, Castiel prompted, “Tell me of your transgressions?”

“Oh, yeah. Right,” he said, as if he’d forgotten, “About that.” Dean hummed and fiddled with his stiffly starched and pressed suit again. “I’ve been, um...”

Castiel waited, but the words seemed stuck in Dean’s throat. “Go on,” he urged gently.

“I’ve been having these... temptations,” he finally blurted.

“Temptations?”

“Impure thoughts,” he clarified.

“About your wife?”

There was a long pause. “No.” The word was barely discernible, yet oddly unabashed.

“I see.” He didn’t let judgment color his tone. It was not his place to judge. “Of another, then?”

Dean made a vague noise of agreement.

Castiel could hear the embarrassed blush in Dean’s tone as much as he could see the silhouette of Dean bringing a hand to the back of his neck. The dull drone of the organ music filled the empty air from outside the confessional as they sat uncomfortably in shared silence. Maybe it was inappropriate to ask, but how else would Dean be fully absolved if he didn’t address his sins directly. 

After careful deliberation, he asked, “Of what nature?”

“Of what-- How do you mean?”

“The... thoughts,” Castiel said, “Tell me about them.”

“Uh, well they’re… sexual,” Dean stammered. He coughed into his fist and his voice dropped, barely above a whisper. “They’re... homosexual in nature,” he corrected.

“Oh.” Castiel’s mouth suddenly went dry and fought to keep himself stoic for Dean’s sake, but he could feel a fluttering in his stomach and he forced himself to swallow thickly around it. “And how often do you experience these thoughts?”

“Honestly?”

“That’s the idea,” he replied drily. 

Despite himself, Dean chuckled. “You got me there, Father.” He scrubbed a hand over his mouth and breathed hard once through his nose. “At least once a week,” he admitted, into the meat of his palm.

“About anything in particular?”

Dean’s hand flew to the back of his neck again to soothe his nerves. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

Castiel nodded, even though Dean couldn’t really see him. “And for how long have these thoughts been plaguing you?”

“I dunno,” he shrugged a shoulder, trying to sweep the question under the rug, but Castiel offered nothing else in return. “I guess--” Clearly nervous, Dean swallowed, throat clicking, and wiped his sweating palms on his thighs before he confessed, “...I guess ever since you came to town?”

***

Every third Sunday since he took over at the parish, Dean Winchester invited Father Castiel to sit down at their table for dinner by the insistence of his doting wife, Lisa. And Castiel graciously accepted the countless invitations each and every time without fail. From the outside, they were a beautiful, young, loving couple with an equally cookie-cutter suburban home who’d recently been wed and Lisa was currently pregnant with their first child. A boy they planned to name Benjamin, or so they’d told him once at dinner. There was always something to discuss during each meal they shared together, even if just the sermon delivered at mass, but Castiel couldn’t focus half the time, least of all on Lisa. 

The real issue was that Castiel couldn’t help stare at Dean. His full lips, his pensive eyes like deep pools, his strong hands. The embodiment of temptation if Castiel had ever seen it. His private confession ringing alarm bells in his skull. And oftentimes, he’d found that when they were alone together on the drive home, Dean wasn’t even fighting the fact he was staring back whenever his gaze swept over Castiel from the driver’s seat. And Dean always insisted on driving him.

It all seemed like a terrible accident at first. A mistake, much like playing with fire. Something they should avoid in the future as if it never happened. 

The first time it happened, it could have been brushed off as merely an accident. A weakening of wills, succumbing to their baser instinct. But one could repent and dole out their Hail Mary’s and one could be forgiven as if it never happened at all if they really meant it.

The second was just as nefarious as the first, but there was no way to twist it into an altogether prettier picture. Intentional or not, it happened, and Castiel wasn’t sure Hail Mary’s applied to people like them anymore.

Now, They drove out past the spot in the wood’s on the edge of town where the high school kids liked to go ‘necking’. Just a little further than that, till the gravelled road gave way to a clearing swathed in pale moonlight. 

This was their spot. 

Dean let the engine rumble for a moment in hesitation, like just maybe they could still turn around, turn their backs on the whole ordeal they’d created for themselves out here in the dark, but they didn’t turn around the last two times and this time was no different. 

Cutting the engine, Dean ran a nervous hand through his neatly combed hair with a huff and the radio cut, taking the mocking melody of Bobby Darin’s ‘Dream Lover’ with it. In turn, they each took a moment for quiet reflection, nary a glance in the other’s direction, as the sweat collected on their palms and under Castiel’s clerical collar. Two sets of blinking eyes staring lost out the windshield as the dead grass swayed in the summer breeze. The only sound filling the cabin of the car was the vacant sound of crickets chirping in the long grass.

“Dinner was lovely, Dean,” Castiel said in a fit of nerves. Something he’d already said twice before they left the house. Just something to fill the empty space in the vain chance God was still listening to him anymore. 

Then Dean weakly voiced, “We shouldn’t be doing this,” as though Castiel had no idea. As though Castiel hadn’t been thinking the exact same thing. 

It was always this way; this was part of the ritual too. A pathetic last-ditch attempt at repentance before they said to hell with it all and reached across the leather bench seat anyway. But this whole thing had always been Dean’s idea, or so he’d imagined. And Dean always reached first. 

A strong, calloused hand hesitantly settled itself into the heat of Castiel’s thigh, fingertips grazing just shy of the inseam. Dean released a shuddered breath, like he’d jumped headfirst off a cliff and somehow caught himself just before he hit the ground. Castiel took a sharp inhale through his nose at the touch, a questioning squeeze. And Dean waited, just to see if Castiel would push his hand away, though he never did. He never would. This time, Castiel laid his hand over Dean’s and inched it higher himself over the fabric bunching next to his groin to palm at the burgeoning erection strapped down against his leg. Hand still holding Dean’s firmly in place, Castiel ground himself against the heat of the other man’s palm and he swallowed a needy whimper at the contact. 

He wouldn’t allow himself the thought that he could never take Dean’s hand in his own simply to hold it.

Pupils blowing wide, Dean sat stock still and watched, not moving to retract his hand as it slid and caught friction. Though, in an instant, Dean turned almost animalistic. Clearly not looking to waste any more time, he jerked his hand free to recklessly tear out of his white, pressed button-down shirt and pawed at Castiel’s to do the same; better to avoid staining in the wash load perhaps. And once they were divested of their shirts, Castiel lunged across the seat to pin Dean down against the leather. Dean had a penchant for having his nipples played with, or so they’d discovered last time, and Castiel wanted nothing more than to please him, so he dipped his chin against Dean’s chest and laved his tongue over the hardening buds in equal turn, revelling in the sensation under his tongue and the way Dean’s plush lips parted for him while his fingers wandered.

The first time had been strictly necking and rubbing each other through their trousers. It had been shy and awkward and rife with hesitation. With shame. The second was much the same except there was skin to skin contact. Daring to place bare hands on bare cocks. But this time, Castiel was craving more, and based on the way Dean was looking at him, brows screwed up in the middle and eyes silently pleading, Dean wanted it just as desperately.

Castiel had never done any of this before that first time. He wasn’t supposed to be doing anything close. But here, in this car, off the beaten road, it didn’t matter at all because Dean had never done it either. Not like this. They were bonded over their inexperience and wanton desires here under the covert darkness, but none of it felt wrong in the slightest. Not to Castiel anyway. Which should have told them everything it needed to.

Bringing his hands around to fumble with Dean’s belt buckle, Castiel brought his hungry mouth to Dean’s in some semblance of a kiss, panting against each other’s flushed skin, breathing the same humid air between their messy exchange of saliva. Their fat tongues slid together as Castiel unzipped the fly of Dean’s khaki slacks and he sucked Castiel’s tongue into his own mouth. He clutched at the hinge of Castiel’s stubbled jaw with both hands, not ready to stop kissing him yet, but Castiel pulled away.

“I want to try something,” Castiel said, skin flushed and trying to catch his breath. 

Something he’d thought about often as a younger man, before everything, as he lay awake at night. Something he figured Lisa with her cherry tinted lipstick, her blood red manicures, and perfectly pressed Sunday dresses would never deign to do. 

“Yeah,” Dean panted, breathless. He nodded hastily, throat clicking. “Whatever it is, just do it,” he stammered, thrusting his fully-fledged cock against Castiel’s palm. “Please.” Dean was practically pleading as his hands slid over Castiel’s sides, down his taut abdomen to grope at his clothed erection and undo his belt. “Need you, Cas.”

Castiel bit back a moan at the feeling of Dean thrusting against his hand, hot and wanting, and he slid the hem of Dean’s slacks under his ass, letting his flushed erection bob free against his stomach like an offering. With obvious desire, Castiel positioned himself over Dean’s hips and dipped his head to place open mouthed kisses down Dean’s stomach and over his hip bones as he squirmed underneath him, impatience only growing. But Dean was spread out for him and the part of Castiel that was saying this was wrong was long gone now. Without further preamble, he licked a long, wet stripe up the underside of Dean’s cock, all the way from the balls to the tip, letting his tongue flit under the head. He could taste the precum beading at the tip. A bitter, salty flavor that Castiel couldn’t seem to get enough of if he tried. 

And god, had he tried. 

Dean let out a guttural moan as that same strong hand came to rest at the top of Castiel’s head. Grabbing the base of his cock, Castiel suckled at the tip to lap up more and Dean couldn’t contain himself. His head fell back against the driver side window with a thud and he pushed at the back of Castiel’s head, fingers curling to grip his dark hair, as a not so subtle suggestion. 

“Cas, please,” he urged through his teeth.

Castiel had thought about this moment every day since the first time he laid eyes on Dean, he wasn’t about to stop now. Hollowing out his cheeks, he sucked as best he could and as deeply as he could, curling his tongue around the shaft and whether he was doing it right or not, Dean couldn’t seem to get enough of it either way. Every moan he wrought from Dean’s throat, he echoed himself, sending gravelled vibrations straight through Dean’s cock. The second he brought a hand up to cup his balls, Dean’s hips lost all control, fucking into his mouth.

Dean’s fingers tightened almost painfully against his scalp. “Cas, I’m gonna--”

“Mmmh,” Castiel choked.

“Cas--”

Suddenly, there was cum filling his mouth and shooting down the back of his throat. Some even dribbling out the corners. Castiel relished all of it with a pathetically needy moan and he drank it readily, hungrily, like Dean was bestowing the holy sacrament upon his tongue. 

And then Dean was tugging his face back up to lick the semen from his lips. To taste himself there. He brokenly moaned the word “fuck” into Castiel’s mouth and then Dean was on him, pushing his black pants past his hips mid-thigh and pinning him down against the passenger seat. 

Dean didn’t hesitate to suck Castiel into the wet heat of his mouth and Castiel cried out for nothing in particular. Perhaps Dean had done this once before, or he just knew what he liked, because he seemed more sure in his movements than Castiel had been. The flat of his tongue sliding against the hard flesh of his cock as he sucked it in deeper. His tongue teasing the slit when he would pull back. 

Within minutes, Castiel was scrabbling for purchase against the sweating glass with one hand, the other clutching the back of the bench seat. 

“Dean,” Castiel cried, the name on a loop on his tongue as he watched him, Dean’s reddened lips stretched around him. Castiel’s possessive fingers eventually found their way to grip into Dean’s greased hair instead as Dean sucked him with vigor.

“I love you,” he hadn’t meant to utter, but it slipped out of his mouth anyway at the sight of Dean peering up at him through his lashes. And Dean moaned around his cock, lust-blackened eyes never leaving his, as he took him deeper still. Moments later, Castiel’s orgasm was racking through his body and he came into the heat of Dean’s mouth with a punched out sob. 

But when Dean pulled off, he didn’t say it back. 

Withdrawing himself, he opened the driver’s side door, craned his neck out to spit Castiel’s seed into the dirt, and he simply wiped the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand. And then they tucked themselves back into their slacks and replaced their shirts in silence. Each button like a lock on a door. 

“I’m sorry, Dean, I-” started Castiel. With a thick swallow, he hazarded a glance in Dean’s direction. “I didn’t mean to-”

Holding a palm up between them, Dean cut him off. “It’s fine, Cas. Just got carried away.” Twisting the keys in the ignition, the car rumbled to life starting up the radio again to another discordant tune. He laid his forearm on the back of the bench seat to reverse and then he put it in drive. “Doesn’t mean anything,” he muttered to himself as they made their way back to the main road.

Though, to Castiel, it meant everything.

Dean dropped him off at the parish rectory, scarcely a word between them, as though the whole thing never happened. When they pulled in, Dean put the car in park by the curb and idled, waiting for Castiel to get out, waiting for something, but the straining tension was obvious.

Chewing his lip, Dean finally released the strained breath he’d tried to contain the whole way there. “We can’t keep doing this,” he said. Running fingers through his greasy, mussed hair, he snorted to himself. His eyes looked wild. “It’s just- it’s wrong, is what it is. I mean, shit, I’m going to be a father.” He shook his head. “I have a wife,” he amended softer, as if to remind himself more than anything. Dean seemed to be having some sort of fit. He ran a palm over his face to bring himself back. “And for God’s sake, how are you just sitting there? How are you so keen on all this? You’re a goddamn priest!” 

“Because I love you”, he wanted to say. But he’d already said that and it didn’t seem to change any of the above. If anything it made it worse.

Instead, eyes resolutely soaking in the black of the night outside the window, Castiel nodded silently. “I know,” he managed to croak out, voice a hoarse whisper, “I know.” Hell, Castiel knew better than most.

Dean blinked hard and his fists gripped painfully tight around the steering wheel. “I’m sayin’ this can’t happen again and that’s all you gotta say?”

“What more would you like me to say? Everything you’ve said is true. Unless, you'd like for me to argue you.” Because Castiel didn't want to stop, but he wasn't going to force Dean to do anything he didn't want to do.

Chancing another glance in Dean’s direction, Dean’s expression was inscrutable as he stared out the windshield, though his wide green eyes were glassy. Memorizing Dean’s profile in the poor street light just in case, Castiel said, “Thank you, Dean,” as he reached for the door handle. “For everything.”

Dean’s jaw clenched in the dark and he gave a wordless nod, eyes glued forward like he couldn’t even bare to look at him anymore, before Castiel closed the car door and the tires peeled away.

This would also be the last time Before.


	2. Dominion

It had started subtly enough. The occasional bouts of anger. The erratic behavior. The venomous words. Waking in the middle of the night to wholly imagined sounds or speaking to voices that weren’t there. Sometimes speaking in a different language altogether; languages he couldn’t fathomably know. 

Then the violence started. 

Or so, that's what Sam Winchester had told him. That’s when Sam had decided to finally ask for his assistance. 

And Castiel had blindly returned to Dean Winchester’s home for the first time since the last, but when he got there he hadn’t been primed for any of it. The way Dean’s blackened eyes seemed to darken even further whenever Castiel stepped nearer. Dean hadn’t been violent towards him though, so Castiel suspected that just maybe, despite all evidence to the contrary, he was simply ill. Some form of brain sickness that could be the result of any number of things. It wouldn’t be so unheard of, he thought, and he’d advised Sam to telephone the local physician for a mental health evaluation and that would put an end to that.

But that had been weeks ago. It hadn’t been so easy.

Now, Castiel stood in front of his mirror in the basement of the parish adjusting his clerical collar and laying his shirt buttons flat. Reaching for his jacket, he shrugged it on and went into his office to grab his well-loved edition of the King James from his desk, the special rites, and to pocket a vial of holy water. The book felt almost like a mockery under his hands, the vial a lead weight, but he carried it under his arm dutifully as he made his way out to the parking lot and he slipped his rosary around his neck like a noose. 

Upon stepping outside, he spotted the gleam of the black paint easily as the rumbling engine idled for him. He rounded the car towards the passenger side with an acknowledging nod as he gripped the door handle and seated himself in that all too familiar passenger seat. The smell of the smooth leather upholstery still a fresh memory in his mind after all this time.

“Hello, Sam,” he greeted as he climbed inside.

“Hey, Father,” Sam replied, distracted. His tone and the dark circles under his eyes only growing darker with each visit Castiel had made. 

This was also the third time Sam Winchester had picked him up in the last month. There’d been no progress yet. The mental health practitioner all but abandoned them in the eleventh hour. Dean was still the same, if not worse, but this time Castiel was prepared. He didn’t need permission from the Church. Losing Dean wasn’t worth the wait.

Sam got onto the main road and headed east, without so much as a word, until they started seeing rolling cornfields. 

“He was asking for you again,” Sam said eventually, as he turned onto a narrow side road. “Demanding, really.”

“That doesn’t surprise me in the least.” 

There was a ritual he could try, Castiel had told Sam the last time they spoke over the phone. A desperate, last-ditch effort. An exorcism of sorts, though Sam seemed appropriately skeptical. Having already given his acts of contrition multiple times these last few weeks, Sam didn’t need to know Castiel wasn’t technically sanctioned to perform an exorcism at all.

“So, you, uh… you really think this’ll work?” By the tone of his voice, Sam sounded as though he were losing faith. Castiel wouldn’t tell him this, but he wasn’t sure he had much left either. 

_O’ ye of little faith._

Castiel tore his sights off the sea of swaying corn husks to study the profile of Sam’s face. The jut of his furrowed brows. The concern creasing his young face. With a gentle nod, Castiel contemplated. “It has to,” is what he said, voice unwavering, as he glanced out the window again. Conviction not entirely devoid of selfishness.

“And if it doesn’t?”

Castiel wouldn’t even consider it. “Failure isn’t an option I’m willing to entertain.”

They pulled up the gravel driveway of Bobby Singer’s farmhouse just before 3 in the afternoon. The sun was hanging off to the west and the squabbling of chickens clearing the driveway were the first things Castiel noticed. All in all, it was a typical afternoon at the quaint home, from what he’d seen of it, despite what he knew was lurking within. 

They’d had to take him here. It was remote.

Castel noted the absence of Bobby’s banged up truck in the driveway. With a tilt of his head, he asked, “Where’s Bobby?”

“Oh, he, uh-- I told him to head into town. He didn't think this was a good idea. The less he knows the better, right?”

Castiel hadn’t seen Dean in weeks, though the last time he had, Dean was hostile in tone and belligerent in action. Slinging wicked insults and attempting bodily harm. A far cry, from the Dean he’d observed over the course of their Sunday dinners. From the Dean he’d come to know in the dark. But they were out of options now.

As they closed the car doors on rusted hinges, they walked in step with each other. Both ambling forward, but neither seeming to want to walk faster to get there. 

“He’s worse.” Sam cleared his throat once they got to the top of the porch steps. “We, uh, had to chain him up. He’s in the basement now. Just thought you should know what you’re walking into.”

Castiel furrowed his brow and regarded Sam’s haunted expression carefully. “What happened?”

Scrubbing a hand over his bristly face, Sam let out an exhale, shaking his head a bit. “Lisa. He tried to-- He had a knife. Who knows how he got it, we made sure to hide everything y’know, but he found it somehow.” He blinked hard before he spoke. “He tried to kill her, Father.”

Shock swept over him, threatening to buckle him at the knees. “Is she- Is Lisa alright?”

“Yeah, she’s staying with her mother up in Atchison. Somehow, we convinced her not to press charges. Said he was sick. Real unwell. Better for the baby this way.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Sam gave a sheepish shrug. “Me and Bobby, we’ve kinda had our hands tied here. You’ll see what I mean.” 

Ushering Castiel through the front door, Sam led him past the living room and down the hall towards the kitchen. The basement door was just around the corner, but Sam made no move to go near it, instead angling himself against the edge of the formica countertop. 

“You sure you don’t need any help with this?” Judging by the look on his face, Sam was praying the answer was ‘no’.

So Castiel, gave it to him. “No, Sam. I think it best to do this alone.” It probably wasn’t true, but no sense in having anyone else getting hurt.

Sam gave a reluctant nod, but the tension drained from his shoulders a bit. “He’s down there,” he sighed, pointing his finger. “Just… see for yourself.”

Castiel regarded Sam and the weathered door with caution. The house was quiet, barely a sound save for the chickens clucking around the backyard. One would think there’d at least be angry howling or signs of a struggle from down below. There was nothing. Castiel swallowed thick his idle fear and stepped towards the door. He needed to be strong for Dean. He couldn’t be afraid. 

Demons fed on fear. That much he remembered.

His hand turned the brass knob with a click and the wooden door creaking on its hinges cut the silence. 

“Lock this door behind me,” he instructed before descending. 

The first step squeaked and groaned under his foot and it continued on like that with each step down the rickety basement stairs. “Good luck,” Sam said. He didn’t follow, instead he closed the door behind him once Castiel reached the bottom. And then the lock slid into place.

He’d never been alone with Dean. Not like this.

Dry concrete coated the ground and his eyes followed a cracked vein in the earth all the way until it hit the sole of a dirty, bare foot. Dean’s foot. He was slumped in the corner atop a sad, forgotten twin mattress, wrists handcuffed around a water pipe, bloody white t-shirt loosely hanging from them in an attempt to get the thing off. A rusted pipe no less. It hardly seemed like enough to contain him. His eyes were downcast, if not closed, and he barely recognized when Castiel cautiously stepped forward from the shadows into the beam of light streaming in from the cracked pane of the ground level window. Subconsciously, his hand gripped the bible under his arm just a little tighter.

The act seemed to rustle Dean out of his trance. His sights wavered and then oh so subtly, out the corner of his eye, he assessed Castiel. Narrow eyes dull and calculating. “I’ve been waiting for you, Father.” He spoke, voice deep and cutting. When Castiel made no move forward, Dean edged his chin towards him. “Oh, _goodie_ , you brought your book with you today,” he noted, tone bored. 

Castiel considered him where he sat half concealed in shadows. “You tried to murder Lisa.”

“Did I?” The corner of Dean’s mouth lifted. “What, no _‘Hello Dean’_ today? How very rude of you.”

“I don’t know who you are, but I know you’re not Dean.”

“No?” Dean chuckled, but it was devoid of its usual mirth. Replaced instead with a musical note that shivered down Castiel’s spine. “How do you know?” His blackened eyes were searching, but they had a mischievous gleam.

“The Dean that I know would never attempt to murder his wife and unborn child,” he stated frankly.

“The Dean that you know is a spineless milksop who wouldn't know his ass from his elbow,” he spat in defiance, “Besides, I never intended to harm the child, I was merely trying to cut him out.” His harsh tongue emphasized the ‘T’s.

“Because that’s better,” Castiel snarked.

“I think so. And what would you care if Lisa were dead? That would make things painfully easy for you, wouldn’t it?” After a beat, he added, “I was doing it for you, Castiel. Because of you. You have to know that.”

Castiel swallowed, but he didn’t speak. He wouldn’t play into its mind games anymore than he had to. He resolved it would be best to just cut to the chase then if he wanted to finish this before Bobby returned home.

“We’ve met before,” Dean continued. “I’m a bit offended you don’t remember me. I remember you.”

“I don’t know you,” Castiel dumbly denied. He attempted to flip through the worn pages of his bible to find the correct scripture from the other side of the room.

A damnable smirk spread across Dean’s shadowed face and he tilted his head, studying Castiel’s jerky movements. “How can you be so sure?” he asked once the silence became insufferable.

Castiel huffed. “Because I would remember,” he said not tearing his attention away from the pages. He wanted Castiel to play along, to take the bait, but Castiel didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. Fishing around in his pocket, Castiel clutched the vial of holy water in his fist and he closed his eyes to deliver a silent prayer for himself. The Lord’s Prayer.

“You were… preoccupied,” dismissed Dean just as he’d come to the part about temptation.

Castiel opened his wary eyes to regard him, jaw and fist clenching. “With what?” he dared to ask.

Dean broke out into ridiculous, off-key song. “ _Dream lover, where are you? With a love, oh, so true…_ ” he hummed the rest of the chorus and clapped his bound hands along, seemingly oblivious to Castiel’s question. “Boy, I just love that song. Don’t you?” He laughed at Castiel’s bemused expression.

The blood drained from Castiel’s face. “You--?”

Tilting his head back to rest against the concrete slabbed wall, Dean lolled his head to meet Castiel’s haunted eyes. In the light, Castiel could see three ghastly gashes scratched across Dean’s gaunt eye socket. Blood encrusted scab wounds starting and ending in crescent moons. Lisa’s blood red fingernails like claws. 

A devilish grin split Dean’s face into something menacing. “That’s too easy. Think harder, Father,” he said. Like driving a hot spike just a few millimeters too close, he was clearly amused now. “Before.”

He couldn’t hold his stare. The black flecks sullied the pure green of Dean’s eyes. Castiel’s gaze fell to his chest then. His skin was matted with sweat from struggling and marred with dirt from the concrete floor, bones protruding where they should be hidden. No bruises. Just blood caked and dried brown from nonexistent bodily wounds trailing over the flesh of his stomach. _Lisa’s blood_ , he realized. His denim-clad legs were spread wide on the mattress, mocking him, while his fingernails picked at the calcium sediment in the wall. 

The idle buzz of a fly hitting the narrow window snapped Castiel out of it. “No,” he said, feebly, mouth going dry. “No, that’s not possible.”

Castiel had seen it before. Once, when he was only a small boy. It had been his father then, reminding him what a pusillanimous nuisance he’d been. A dark spot in their proud family tree. Castiel deserved it. Castiel had made him do it. Worse, Castiel wanted it because he was a ‘faggot’. Or so his father would say every time he would use his belt among other more intimate, brutalized punishments. 

And now, apparently, the damnable thing had crawled inside Dean Winchester. 

The smile hadn’t left his face, but it warped into something injured to mimic Castiel’s own expression. “Isn’t it?” 

Finally, Castiel dared to look him in the eye. “How?”

“Because of you,” he said simply. “It’s always been you.” 

With a swallow, Castiel willfully ignored his intentioned stare. Pulling the vial from his pocket with unsteady hands, Castiel bestowed himself with the mark of the cross and kissed his thumbnail as he hazarded a few steps towards the edge of the mattress. No sense dawdling.

Dean’s gaze locked onto the vial, eyes widening a fraction of an inch. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “What’s that?” 

From where he stood, Castiel could see the whites of his tainted eyes. He didn’t answer him. He found his place in the Book and he began to read from the Litany of Saints, weakly stringing together their names, as he bent over to bestow the cross upon Dean as well. Dean hissed like a snake, a spitting thing at the back of his throat, but when Castiel continued reading he began to laugh all the while. 

“Do you really think this will work?” Dean mocked, eyebrows twisting with pity. 

Castiel ignored him and he read on, uncapping the vial of holy water, and anointing small droplets onto Dean’s exposed skin. And Dean gasped and growled a fearsome thing. An animalistic snarl catching in his throat as the water burned welts on his skin.

“How many dinners?” He choked out eventually. “How many dinners did you insist upon attending before you corrupted him?” He hawked spit by the sole of Castiel’s shiny black shoes, but he continued on just as Castiel did. “A married man? On the Lord’s day, no less?” The two of them competing to find the bigger voice. “Was the Lord not good enough for you, Father?”

_“From all evil, deliver us, O Lord... From all sin... From your wrath... From sudden and unprovided death... From the snares of the devil…”_

Rising to his knees, Dean snarled, “I am not the devil! The devil fears me!” Another splash of holy water and Dean was jerking the cuffs binding his wrists, the rusty water pipe rattling with it. 

Castiel paused to turn the page, unintentionally glancing up, and the two of them made eye contact. Something dark and dangerous was alight behind Dean’s blackened eyes.

“Every time, I was there,” he asserted low. “Every time you’ve thought about getting his duplicitous cock up your ass. Every time you looked. Every time you so much as breathed in his general direction, I was there!” His teeth clenched as he fought against the metal around his wrists. Like he was willing to flay the meat from the bone to free himself. “ _I was there for you!_ ”

Castiel couldn’t trust that he wouldn’t. He pressed on. “ _Do not keep in mind, O Lord, our offenses or those of our parents, nor take vengeance on our sins._ ” 

“You put on quite the show, Castiel! Swallowing him down on your knees like a cocksucking whore! I guess some things never do change. If the priesthood couldn’t save you, what could?” He laughed a maniacal thing, head lolling back. “What would your father say to you now? Why, he’s down here with us, wouldn’t you like to know?”

“ _Enough!_ ” Castiel’s voice was stronger than before, a bellowing command, but he’d caved in before he could recite the Lord’s Prayer aloud. He wasn’t supposed to be swayed so easily by the twisting tongue of a demon. 

Dean’s eyes flared in challenge and he began suggestively undulated his hips, pressing his groin into the water pipe to taunt him. “I know this is what you really want,” he gasped. “You can have it, you know. I’d let you. You just have to let me go.”

“You know nothing of which you speak.”

Dean cackled. “On the contrary, I know everything! I was inside you just as I am him! Deeper than you’ve ever dared. Dreaming about being bent over your church pews. On your knees like a subservient leech while his dutiful wife and unborn child are none the wiser.” He spat at him again. “A couple of godless cocksuckers. You’re perfect for each other,” he sneered.

Another anointment. Castiel recited the Lord’s Prayer aloud now as Dean flailed in his confines. And once he stopped, Castiel splashed him again to keep his burning cries stoked. He read through Psalm 53 as Dean slumped back against the mattress, visibly weakened, but it was still in his eyes. The blackness. 

“ _God, whose nature is ever merciful and forgiving, accept our prayer that this servant of yours, bound by the fetters of sin, may be pardoned by your loving kindness._ ”

Dean smirked again as he watched Castiel. “You better hope that’s true, for your own sake,” he said.

“ _I command you, unclean spirit,_ ” Castiel began again, “ _whoever you are, by the mysteries of the incarnation, passion, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the descent of the Holy Spirit, by the coming of our Lord for judgment, that you tell me your name. I command you to obey me, for I am a minister of God despite my unworthiness; nor shall you be emboldened to harm in any way this creature of God, or the bystanders, or any of their possessions. Tell me your name!_ ”

“But you know it still!”

Gripping his fingers in Dean’s crop of dirty, overgrown hair, Castiel tugged his head back, exposing his throat. “ _Tell me_ ,” he demanded through gritted teeth. 

Dean’s eyes rolled back in his head and he moaned like he was revelling in the pain until Castiel released him with a shove. “ _Guess it_ ,” he egged, tongue poking between his teeth.

“I won’t fall prey to your games, demon.” Castiel laid his sweating palm roughly against Dean’s forehead, keeping his neck pinned against the concrete despite all his efforts to wriggle free. “ _They shall lay their hands upon the sick and all will be well with them_ ,” he followed. “Give me the name!” 

But Dean wouldn’t. He just smiled, unphased. 

“ _The Lord be with you._ ”

“And also with you.” Dean chuckled.

Dabbing holy water on his fingers, Castiel laid the tips against Dean’s bloody forehead, his lips, and his chest and he recited the Gospel of John over Dean’s retched cries. “ _May the blessing of almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, come upon you and remain with you forever._ ” Castiel fumbled to pull the rosary from his neck. He set the book down, and came to kneel at Dean’s feet at the edge of the mattress. Clutching the arms of the cross between his fingers, he held out the stem to sear upon the flesh of Dean’s unmarred neck, but just before it grazed him Dean shrieked an inhuman laugh. 

“My name,” he gasped, “I’ll give you a name.”

“What is _your_ name?”

“Michael,” he spat, too willingly.

Castiel faltered, but he knew he was being lied to. Yanked like a dog on a chain. “You’re lying!” When Dean just grinned again, pinned under his hand, Castiel laid the cross upon his neck and Dean screamed bloody murder layered with guttural growls impossible for any human to utter as he shook the pipe in an effort to claw himself free. The shape etched into his flesh like a hot brand. Lord be with you. “You’re no angel!” 

“Neither are you! That’s why I chose you!”

Signing the cross over his chest, Castiel sprinkled the holy water as he watched Dean squirm. “Why Dean?”

“Why not?” Dean rasped breathlessly. 

“Dean doesn’t deserve this!”

“He prayed for this too! Every Sunday.”

“Dean would not ask for this!”

“But he did! You both did! You did this to him!”

Castiel ignored him once more, flipping his pages on the dirty concrete floor. The exorcism rite. Finally. “ _I cast you out, unclean spirit, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ_ ,” he started.

Dean’s chest arched off the mattress and fell back with a thud, but it punched another laugh from his chest. “Uh-uh,” he clucked his tongue against his teeth. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he taunted. “It’s against the rules! Why, you could hurt Dean! And then what would keep your cock warm?”

“Your name!”

“I’ve been waiting for you a long time, Castiel. Perched on your shoulder. Clawing through your perverted mind,” he spat. “You’ve put up quite the fight for nothing. You might as well give in now.”

“I won’t listen to you!” He carried on with the exorcism and the darkness behind Dean’s eyes grew desperate.

“If you untie me, you could have it, you know,” he offered when it became apparent that Castiel wasn’t listening to him. “Everything you’ve prayed for when you should have been praying to God. I could give it you,” he said simply. Words emphasized by an upwards thrust of his groin. “Or, you could take it,” he wantonly suggested when Castiel didn’t stop, opening to him on the dirty mattress like a twisted blossom. His eyes were searching for Castiel’s weakness.

Castiel mistakenly allowed himself one disapproving glance as he turned the page. Their eyes met. Dean grinned knowingly.

“Ah, there it is.” He spoke hushed. Like a secret just between the two of them. “He doesn't love you, Castiel, but I could. I could give you anything you want. No one would have to know.” His hips were writhing against the bed in a tormented, seductive lure. The motion caused his loose jeans to inch lower under his ass, exposing the sharp jut of his emaciated hip bones, and the faint trail of hair that disappeared beneath the hem to the base of Dean’s cock. 

“You’re wrong. I would know.” Castiel tried his best to ignore it, but his eyes lingered there a little too long. On the dirty skin slicked with sweat. “ _God_ would know.”

“What do you care about God?” Dean choked back another laugh as Castiel glowered at him over the bible. “What makes you think he’s even paying attention?” 

“Stop talking!”

“If you won’t have me, then I’ll take it from him!”

Castiel read on.

“ _Cas_ ,” he began to moan over and over, when Castiel stopped giving him the attention he craved. The familiar syllable was grating against his ears like fingernails on a chalkboard. “Cas, please! I love you, Cas!” He was restlessly rocking his hips again, working the denim lower. “Need you, Cas,” he begged, broken just as Dean had sounded the last time. “Need your pitiful excuse for a cock in my whore mouth!” A depraved cackle erupted from his throat. 

Castiel spilled the holy water on his face, into his mouth and up his nose, and Dean sputtered and squealed around it, limbs flailing as he struggled to breathe. He laid his crucifix to Dean’s forehead, embedding it with his palm, and he raised his voice higher over him still, repeating the exorcism, casting him out once more and ignoring the way Dean’s body contorted and convulsed against the mattress.

In the back of his mind, Castiel feared Dean might choke on his own tongue, but if the exorcism didn’t work, choking might be preferable to this. And Dean spasmed bodily as he read, metal chain of the handcuffs rattling as it tugged on the water pipe all the while. The whites of his eyes rolled back into his head as he shook, foaming spit leaking from the corners of his lips followed by a river of blood, but when Castiel blinked the blood was gone.

“ _In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I cast you out!_ ”

Dean’s body fell still, slumping his straining neck against the embroidered mattress. Castiel waited a minute for movement, though there was none, and panic began to overtake him at the thought of anything happening to Dean down here in this dank basement. Because of him. 

Unsticking his hand, the crucifix peeled out of the brand and coiled off to the side. He waited a moment longer still. Nothing. Craning his neck in to hover over Dean, Castiel placed his ear by Dean’s mouth and he could discern a whispering breath. A reedy, wet sound. Dean was still alive, hanging on by a thread. In a rush, Castiel recited the Lord’s Prayer again in closing, before he pushed himself to his feet. He was scrambling for the staircase, taking them two at a time, and when he got to the top he banged on the door with open palms. 

“Sam! _Sam!_ ” he called, until the lock clicked on the other side of the door. As soon as it opened, he was tumbling through it, practically crashing into Sam into the kitchen. “Phone the paramedics,” he panted, hands falling to his knees, “I think I’ve finally done it!”

The massive weight Sam carried sloughed off at the proclamation. He darted for the kitchen drawer by the corded telephone, fishing around for the handcuff key as he dialed on the rotary. “Hello!” he shouted, tossing Castiel the key, “Yes! I need an ambulance!” Sam delivered the address as Castiel thundered down the basement steps and crossed the concrete floor.

Kneeling by the edge of the mattress, Dean hadn’t moved, but he was still breathing and that was something. It had to be enough, he thought, as he jammed the tiny key into the pinhole size lock of the handcuffs. He opened one to free him from the pipe, and he brought Dean’s limp arm around to rest in his lap. He undid the second cuff and tossed them aside on the mattress with his rosary. 

“ _Dean_ ,” Castiel urged, clapping a clammy palm to the side of his heavy face. “Dean, can you hear me? Wake up.” He clapped again, firmer, as his other hand rubbed at the red marks around his wrists. “Wake up!” He gave another slap.

Sucking in a rasping, wet breath, Dean coughed and coughed until he couldn’t breathe, but then he shot up vertically and hacked something dark and liquid between his legs. It ran down his chin and tear ducts, as his sunken eyes flicked up to meet Castiel’s. 

“Father?” It came out confused. And Dean was looking at him as if he were a virtual stranger. Finding his voice, he weakly asked, “What happened?” 

Castiel took the holy water in his hand once more and he dribbled the last remaining drops on Dean’s wrists just to be sure. No burning, no welts. Thrusting the crucifix into his slack hands, he checked this too. No reaction. 

“Dean!” Reaching for the other man, he hauled him into his arms and it didn’t matter that Dean didn’t remember or was too weak to return the sentiment or that he stank of unwashed excrement. Castiel released the first sigh of relief he’d ever allowed himself. 

Dean Winchester was saved and that was more important than all else.


End file.
